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Running a bath, but first I had to encourage the snakes to go down the plug hole. There were around four to six of them, all orange or red and a little narrower than my thumb. After my bath, I gave my hair an extra rinse in the sink, and noticed the water running a mossy brown colour. While I was rinsing, the doorbell rang and I felt mildly guilty for letting my housemates get it, when I knew it was likely to be a delivery for me.

Then, realising that I was up, bathed and dressed all ready for work at such an early hour, I felt pretty damn impressed at myself. Unfortunately, this is a ruse my subconscious often plays, to horrify me all the more when I wake up and find I’m still in bed.

Later, I was going through a large book that Sibling had had since childhood, to try and identify the snakes. We also looked at illustrations of birds; he asked me to estimate, from the drawings, whether the wing span of one was bigger than my hand and I said no without really looking, then regretted my answer. Sibling turned his attention to his favourite section of the book, on vampires, and asked, “what did you say the vampire you dreamt about was called?”

“Damn, I can’t remember,” I said, “I’ll have to look back through my blog,” but although I could remember the vampire dream, there was no record, on the blog or any of the bits of paper I have lying around, of his name. *

Some time last week, I dreamt I had a bald patch gaping at the crown of my head. Two nights ago, I was walking around in a shortish skirt with my legs making no attempt to look shaven. (On the subject of legs, in the same night I also dreamt that I couldn’t kick as high as some of my dance comrades, which indeed I can’t.)

My hair dreams had settled down recently, but about a year ago I had a rash of them – I saw myself losing hair from my head and eyebrows, while growing a winter coat across legs, chin, breasts, belly. Oh, and there was that time when I had a long soak in the bath at my (then new) shared house, then left the bathroom not realising I’d left a light but even covering of pubic hair in the tub….

Writing a novel; I can’t remember what it was about, but I sure remember the self-doubt, wondering if what I was putting out there was at all interesting or just self-indulgent.

Carelessly splashed some water on the bathroom floor (while brushing my teeth?) and one of my housemates pointedly remarked – in front of the whole household – on how he’d had to dry it up.

A different male friend (not the one in previous fragments) was hoping for a relationship with me. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, wondering with guilt if I’d led him on.

In reality, I was staying at Sibling and C’s house. In dream, we were all staying at C’s mother M’s house (this being the first time I’d met M; in reality, I’ve never met her). Based on strange goings on, Sibling, C and I reached the conclusion that M had murdered someone. Not for the first time, said Sibling and C. We tried to excuse ourselves by going for a curry, to discuss how to turn M in or at least avoid being murdered ourselves. But the curry house was full of people we knew, and because we didn’t know how to explain wanting to sit separately from them, we ended up at a table with three or four others. As we were eating, a helicopter descended and M arrived with an entourage of security staff. Back in the downstairs hallway, we got into a brawl and she threatened me with some kind of weapon (not a gun… a knife? a club?).

… possibly woken up by one of the cats, in reality, jumping on the bed. When I told Sibling about the dream over breakfast, he said that nothing of the sort would ever happen; apparently M loves curry so we’d never have made it to the nearest balti house without her.

Three separate but closely-blended university-related dreams in one night:

1. Arriving at the student flat that had been provided for me. It was lovely, big and light, at one corner of the third or fourth floor overlooking the big city which as night came on became lit up with neon and car headlights.

The flat seemed to only have single beds, but four of them. My mum had driven me to the city, and stayed overnight. She was comandeering the music we played in the flat, which I only grudgingly accepted because she was the guest. I felt I couldn’t start making the place my own til I’d heard some of my choice of tunes there. Mum chose the bed by one window, so I went for the furthest away. I was looking to see if any of them were doubles; one of them looked like it might be. I would investigate further the next day.

The bathroom walls were made of one-way glass, so when I sat on the toilet it looked as though I was right in the middle of the apartment with nothing between me and my mum, who was sitting on the end of her bed. I was astonished when she assured me that she really couldn’t see through the wall – and she was equally astonished that I could.

2. Unpacking my shoes onto a low shelf in the apartment, I saw to my surprise that I had a dark red pair of suede boots, some knee-high disco platforms in glittery red, and some black patent Dr Martens. I hoped my mum, nearby, wouldn’t pay attention to what I was doing and criticise my shoe-spending. My pink DMs (which I do have in real life) were now made of suede rather than patent leather, and the disco boots had got wet, bleeding some of their colour into one pink boot, staining it a different colour to its partner. I tried to dry them off, hoping the red colour would fade, which it did slightly. But I couldn’t get rid of the water; droplets kept appearing around the disco shoe. I couldn’t take the boot into the bathroom to sort it out properly because then my mum would see and be angry that I’d thrown money away by spoiling the shoes that I shouldn’t have bought in the first place.

3. Despite having not given out my address, I had a stack of post at the new place (which now looked very different, dark and narrow). There was an A4 envelope with my dad’s handwriting on, saying “open 31.12.2003” (my 21st birthday) and with a post-mark dated to 2007. I wondered why my dad had sent me a birthday present separately from my mum, apparently in secret, apparently long before the date, and why it had taken so many years to arrive. And now, turned up at this address.

When I opened it though, it wasn’t from my dad at all. The letter demanded repayment of my undergraduate loan, claiming I owed over £10k (significantly more than I actually borrowed, even with interest). The company had tracked me to this address, forging my dad’s handwriting and giving the date of my 21st to trick me into opening the letter. I spoke to him on the phone and we agreed it was a scam which I didn’t need to respond to. All other questions remained unanswered.

My friend Helen and I were in the bathroom at my parents’ house, supposedly getting ready to go out. But she had a stomach ache and felt sick. She curled up in the bathroom cabinet, clutching her stomach; I could see she was really in intense pain.

She asked for a bucket to puke in, but I didn’t want to go round the house looking for one. I tried not to show that I really just wanted to hurry out for an evening of fun, and didn’t want to have to look after a vomiting person. I offered her a measuring jug, cringing inwardly at the thought that it might not hold as many chunks as were about to come out.

To my relief, what came out of Helen’s mouth was a perfect, lightly fried egg. I emptied the egg into the bath and it plopped slimily into the tub like a fish.

Each time I held the jug to Helen’s chin, she produced another egg, which slid into the bath with the others.

WTF, subconscious?

What stands out to me about this dream is my reluctance to help my friend beyond what was strictly convenient for me. I felt impatient and at least a little bit disgusted at her predicament. (Sorry mate!) I think it’s suggesting that I feel over-burdened or compromised by looking after other people’s needs. I’m torn between not wanting to be selfish, and resenting those who do encroach on what I hoped was going to be fun-time for me.

Dreaming of our parents’ / childhood homes (which I do a lot) generally suggests some unresolved issues from our upbringing. The feelings of not wanting to let other people’s needs compromise my own – but not wanting to let on that I feel that way – are ones that I recognise. And presumably they stem from childhood.

Context

Helen and I actually were going out together the following evening. But why eggs, I had no idea.

We were going to a comedy gig (Bianca Del Rio’s Not Today, Satan, if you’re curious), and before that we went for dim sum. I ordered a daring selection of seafood, and Helen went for vegetarian delicacies, including some caramel buns, which came nestled in a bamboo steamer like eggs in a basket.

She couldn’t finish the last one, so we cut it in half. And this is what I saw:

….

So when I came to write this blog, I searched the internet to show you caramel buns looking like cooked eggs…

But Google went one step further.

What. The actual. Fuck.

…I hope you’ve enjoyed this, my first ever post on wtfsubconscious? You can use the contact page to send me any comments, questions, suggestions on how to make this blog more awesome, or dreams of your own that you’d like to share.